


Operation: Battle Flag

by shockfactor



Series: Operation: Legacy [2]
Category: XCOM (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 19:12:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16373402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shockfactor/pseuds/shockfactor
Summary: Part 2 of Operation: LegacyFollow a few survivors of XCOM as they attempt to survive in a post-invasion US, and eventually strike back at the aliens.Begins 19 years before the events of Operation: Go Home





	Operation: Battle Flag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam Jones tells us a little bit about himself, his background, and how he came to be a member of the original XCOM's elite strike team.

**"My name is Adam Quincy Jones. I'm the commanding officer of XCOM's elite operations squadron, Menace Team."**  
  
_**"Ah, who am I FUCKING kidding?"**_  
  
_**"Yeah, if you're watching this... you either don't know already, and we won, or you already know we're a hot bloody mess, but aye, I'm in command of Menace Team. I've done my best to whip them into a fighting force, and I reckon I did alright. But that's not what this is about, is it? Bradford thought it would be a wonderful idea to chronicle our stories, for when the war's over. So that when we're gone, people will remember us. What we sacrificed. What we did."**_  
  
_**"So, I guess this is where I start my story."**_  
  
_**"You see, I was just a normal lad growin' up. I was born in the city of Wrexham, in Wales, and I spent almost my whole life there. My father was an alcoholic shithead who raped my mother, and thus, we never met. Considering the state I was in by the time the war started, it is likely that is the best possible outcome for him. My mum refused to have me put out, and brought me to term, and she'd probably have never believed I would have made it. You see, my mum was hard into narcotics when I was conceived- heroin, amphetamines, alcohol, pretty much everything but the kitchen sink. She was scared shitless I was going to be some sort of warbling invalid, but no, I turned out... alright. I was sick as a dog as soon as I got out, but I pulled through. As my grandfather was so proud to tell everyone, his wee lad was one tough son of a bitch."**_  
  
_**"Mum checked into rehabilitation almost immediately after, wanted to get her life together, which left me with my grandparents, most of the time. My grandpa was a military man- Royal Navy, served in the Falklands. I loved military crap, even when I was just a tinker- would fuck around with model planes and toy tanks and sometimes I'd just go faff about on the lawn wearin' a doughboy the old man'd bought at the surplus just for me. I wanted nothing more in life than to be a soldier."**_  
  
_**"Mum came back into my life around the time I was 8. She'd relapsed a bit, but she seemed intent on bettering herself, and was doing well enough that my grandparents felt safe letting me stay with her. She wasn't a fan of my obsession with the military, although I never did learn why. I went through school , did alright for myself, didn't really stand out too much. Graduated upper 30 percent of my class from secondary and went straight to university, leaving Wrexham for the first time to attend the University of Glamorgan. I participated in the Officer Training Corps there, and pursued an MA in Music Production. I'd also attempted to enlist in the military, specifically, the Royal Marines. Sure enough, I was recruited straight away, and I had to put my university career on hold for the moment. I had just recently turned 21."**_  
  
_**"I served with the Marines for a couple of years, before some friends of my grandfather and friends of said friends got in contact, and agreed that Morgan's boy deserved a bit of a better station. Wasn't ideal for me, but I took it for the pay raise and the title."**_  
  
_**"Who wouldn't want to be a Royal Marine COMMANDO, for Christ's sake?"**_  
  
_**"Anyhow, I ended up as a member of the 43 Commando Fleet Protection Group, stationed at HMNB Clyde. As Her Majesty's military has been disbanded as of the time I'm recording this, I figure this bears a bit of explanation- the role of 43 Commando is to provide marksmen and boarding specialists for the Navy's operations, as well as to guard the realm's final defense- the United Kingdom's sea-based nuclear weapons. While held in reserve as many of us were, I was one of the many faceless men in green who stood watch over our arsenal. I served for 2 years in the 43 Commando before I got another call. I still don't know how, or why I got the call, but I did. When MI6 calls, you bloody well fuckin' pick up the phone."**_

__

* * *

"Turns out a lot of men from the military here in the Kingdom had been tapped by an American-run, multinationally-funded military organization that operated strictly in the black. No one had any command over them, they made their own rules, used state of the art technology, had the brightest minds in the world working for them..."  
  
"This was XCOM. For some bloody reason, I was selected, among others, including quite a few fellow Marines, although none I knew personally, to act as reserve units for their active duty roster, about 100 or so men total. Counting reserves, it was probably something closer to 450. We were all highly trained specialists even the reservists- the creme-de-la-creme of the world's armed forces. We had Navy SEALs, Delta Force, Special Air Service, Spetsnaz, GROM, INSAS, Mossad, you name it, we had at least one of them. We weren't told where we were, or even why we were here, only that we had been selected."  
  
"Good thing they were so cryptic at first, because if they had told us what they picked us for when they collected us, shite, we'd have all laughed at them and went back to our posts. Fuck, we all did the laughing regardless."  
  
"XCOM was a former US government entity formed during the Cold War, initially designed with the intention of keeping an eye on Soviet developments in the space race, but soon changed their focus to more... fanciful matters. Aliens. Yes, ALIENS. We got a kick out of that. Point was, apparently there were small alien incursions that were contained rather admirably by XCOM in the past- deep coverups that nobody outside of the highest levels of clearance knew about. For example, the Roswell incident? Was actually XCOM shooting down a UFO that was on a trajectory for DC."  
  
"XCOM had been hard at work since the late 50s, and now we were staffing the latest iteration of that initiative. No one was to know we existed. We were the silent, but necessary watchmen, standing in the bell tower and waiting for doomsday. I could have sworn it was a prank back then, but they were going to pay us handsomely for our service. I couldn't refuse, especially considering I actually had to go through MI6 to get here. I don't think the government would scam me that hard."  
  
"Regardless, I was proven a fool not even a year after being tapped. XCOM's worst fears had been realized- ayys had made touchdown on Earth, and they weren't here for tea time. The world's best and brightest were assembled to give us all a fighting chance, and sure enough, by week one, all of the primary fireteam were dead save for one man, a big Argentinian by the name of Jorge Alvomar. Alvomar was tasked with leading the primary strike team of the organization, Strike One. Strike One was the most regularly deployed of the units, often seeing action at least twice every week and a half. With that rate, it was only natural that a bunch of lads were going to get knocked out of the fight. Come a year into the conflict, and we had 68 dead, 25 too wounded to return to active duty, and  _130 resignations_. "  
  
"I was assigned to Strike One around that time, with the effective rank of Sergeant. My squadmates at that time were Almovar, Captain Ezekiel Collins, Lieutenants Iwabe Osajambo and Desi Murabak,  and Sergeant Jin-seong Baek. Collins and Almovar were the longest tenured members of the squad, so of course, they took the lead on operations."  
  
"Once such operation, and one of the last ones of the war, was an intervention in Germany, where I unwittingly met Remi Duvalier for the first time, but he'd tell you more about that than I would ever feel the need to. That was a resounding success on paper, but the VIP we'd been sent to Germany to collect was dead, Rammstein Joint Air Base was lost, and Germany capitulated by the weekend. On paper, great job, team? In practice, ya fuckin' suck."  
  
"My next, and personally final combat deployment with XCOM was Operation: Quiet Howl, in Pennsylvania. It was a VIP escort mission- specifically, we were to insert near the Raven Rock complex, one of the many US government hideaways that they could flee to in the event of a national crisis, and evacuate the Secretary of State, who was now, due to circumstances beyond our control, the active president. Bad luck all around."  
  
"What we weren't told is that the aliens weren't even the ones trying to bloody compromise the facility- it was EXALT, an alien-sympathizer organization that was more in favor of just handing it all over to the ayys and hoping we didn't get fucked too roughly. We also weren't told that there were already friendly elements on the ground, which led to ANOTHER snafu... you'd have to hear it from the horse's mouth, mate. Talk to Lawrence. He remembers it like it was yesterday."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Commander's Notes:
> 
> Adam's grandfather, Morgan Jones, served in the Falklands with Cole Gallagher, XCOM's liason to the British military. Adam was specifically recommended to the project by Gallagher, which led to his recruitment.


End file.
